For my boy...a quick bit of advice from the semi-old man

My son...

...I wanted to drop a quick note to you, and perhaps one day, as you get older and you make my knowledge of the internet look like a 14 year old trying to pierce a vagina, you'll find my blog and see how your dad thinks.

I won't make this long, 'cuz well, I wanted to play "MLB 2K11" (yeah, I am more than a season behind, but a gamer, like you are/were at the time I wrote this, I am not), and I figured that by the time you read this, you'll still not listen to a damned word I say, figuring all I do is yell at you because I am such an asshole.

But here I go nonetheless.

Don't give a shit about what people think...but give a shit about what people think.

Yup, u r probably saying to yourself right now, "What in Roblox is my father talking about?"

(Private joke btw my boy and I, as that he and his mother will be the only two who get that).

You are handsome.  I never was.  Now, once upon a time your mother thought I was handsome...before I got fat, lazy, and unmotivated.  Don't get me wrong, hopefully by the time you read this, she'll still be my wife, and will still love me.  But Channing Tatum (the hot thing of the moment as of the date of this posting) I will never be.

You are so damned smart, it is frightening.  As of the date of this post, you have no idea what "super powers" your mind possesses.  I guess that my major flaw as a father at this point is that you are too young and senseless (note, not stupid; just at this time you have the sense of a horsefly about to fly into one of those zappers because it looks "pretty") to realize that you dwarf me.  Not ur mom...unless she gets senile, ur mom will always find ways to beat you.  However, you can be a first in the Flagler Genealogy (beyond your 3 uncle's on my side of the family, and 1 on ur mom's side) to be what your old man is not.

A TRULY good man.  Not one who would waste his youth and decades of time because he was so damned afraid of everything.

Does that sound familiar?  That is what I've said to you for a long time, isn't it?

You truly could be the man...correction, the ONE.  No need to reinforce the silly semi-sexism ideas you have gotten from somewhere.  That is one of the few successes I have had as a father...to quote Chuck D (Google him, as that I know you'll have no idea who he is), "Without Mothers, they'd be no brothers; without sisters, they'd be no misters."

Respect the ladies, my son.

But I am getting off track, as I tend to do in my thoughts.

I am less than a month from my...well, further journey into my 40's.  My phone doesn't ring with friends asking me to come over to hang out, or join them for lunch, or to be even be seen with me.  The social media phenomenon is in full swing, and perhaps I have forced my opinion on some folks, in the foolish thought that maybe people would look forward to agreeing respectfully to disagree with me.  But, as it has been the case for most of my life, I am alienated from most, with only your mom brave enough to either love me, or put up with me in combination of loving me.

What I am saying is this.  The previous generation before me was a failure as a man.  I, sadly, in a lot of ways, have repeated some of those mistakes.  My attempt at being kind to my fellow human has mostly backfired, and whether there is such a thing as a curse, or a combination of my poor choices in life, I am truly at times alone, awaiting for my last breath  to be taken.

...not to say that I want to die at this moment, but it is how I feel at times.

You, my oldest child, don't have to be that way.  The human race is a shallow race, mostly concerned with themselves, their beliefs, the people they deem as "cool", or whatever slang that may be used at whatever time in modern history.  I have always gone about saying I don't give a shit about what people think...but that was about 60% false.  I would love to be liked more, and it crushes me at times that only a few have bothered to give a damn about me, despite my only crime perhaps was to not keep more of my thoughts to myself.

But your father says that is no crime.  Be YOU.  Be the best you.  Learn to play the cruel human game, but don't become a cruel human.  Sadly, unless you hold the reigns, you have to have someone like you so you can move up and on.  However, don't change you in order to be liked.

That makes you...human...and while that is what you are, don't give in to what makes us the failed creatures that we are.

You'll fuck up, my son.  It's unavoidable.

But when you do fall, don't keep falling.  Don't give in.

And whatever you do...don't be another copy in the machine that are the men on this side of the family.

Don't be me.